Easter, or Holy, Saturday was the day many new Christians were baptised and welcomed into the Church. Lent was the period of preparation for these Catechumens, as they were called, for their reception into the Christian community and their first opportunity to receive bread and wine. Then Good Friday and Holy Saturday were added to the Lenten fast and Lent grew to 36 days of fasting. Over the next centuries, the Church established the practice of welcoming back the prodigals at Easter on Maundy Thursday alongside the Catechumens, or new Christians, on Holy Saturday. Since Wednesday and Friday were traditional fasting days in the Church calendar, the Wednesday before the first Sunday of Lent became the time to mark these penitents with the sign of the cross in ashes. This sign they didn’t wash off until Maundy Thursday, so wore throughout Lent.

So four more days were added to Lent, Ash Wednesday to the Saturday before the first Sunday of Lent, giving us 40 days of fasting, excluding the Sundays when the fast is broken in acknowledgement of Christ’s resurrection. Yet, fasting is not seen as some trial we must endure. It is seen as something that trains us in looking to God for completeness in our Christian life. We fast for something. The idea of missing a meal and replacing it with a period of prayer and scripture reading is that we might become more confident of the Christ we follow. It is especially important over Lent as we prepare to renew our commitment to following Jesus. All too often the Lenten fast has been replaced with an attempt to lose weight by giving up chocolate, with Jesus the excuse rather than the focus. Only fast if it is out of a desire to become more like Jesus, remembering to break that fast each Sunday and celebrate the reality of the resurrection.

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